SEIU Pounds the Health Bill after White House Throws them Under the Bus

“I believe this is the moment when we must stand as one and say enough,” Service Employees International Union President Andy Stern wrote in a letter to his fellow members.

While he stopped short of formally opposing the bill that is making its way through the Senate, he did express outrage over the concessions made to Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.). “The public option is declared impossible. Americans cannot purchase Medicare at an earlier age. The health insurance reform effort we have needed for a century is at risk,” Stern wrote.

And in a significant change of tone, Stern — who has visited the White House more than any other labor official — called out President Barack Obama for moving away from the promises of his campaign.

President Obama must remember his own words from the campaign. His call of “Yes We Can” was not just to us, not just to the millions of people who voted for him, but to himself. We all stood shoulder to shoulder with the President during his hard fought campaign. And, we will continue to stand with him but he must fight for the reform we all know is possible.

Our challenge to you, to the President, to the Senate and to the House of Representatives is to fight. Now, more than ever, all of us must stand up, remember what health insurance reform is all about, and fight like hell to deliver real and meaningful reform to the American people.

“Health reform is starting to look like a way to make coverage attractive to those least likely to use it, while making those most likely to use insurance – such as older customers, who would have to pay rates four times what the young pay, with no sense of where that age-banding begins; or those with pre-existing conditions, who would get charged 50% more – unable to afford it. As Jon Walker put it, “This sounds like a recipe to price out the old (nonprofitable) and force only the young (profitable) to buy insurance.”

The Huffington Post then suggests the White House is playing hard ball, right back at the SEIU:

“Union officials, while privately angry with the White House and Democrats in Congress, still need the support of these lawmakers on other legislative priorities. Meanwhile, having poured millions into advertisement and man-hours in order to get health care passed, they have watched in horror as the principles they worked for were abandoned in a matter of days.”

After spending millions to back ObamaCare and being run over by the bus in public, is it any wonder the SEIU is hot? FireDogLake also pounds the White House for their tax on union health plans:

“On the excise tax, this is obviously a key concern for unions, and the best practice would be to enact a carve-out for those who arrived at their health benefits through collective bargaining. The White House is trying to defend the excise tax by saying that it only impacts 3% of all health plans, but with health inflation not expected to end with this bill (perhaps slow down if everything goes well), that 3% number will grow. The CBO score tells you the number will grow. That’s why reformers like it, because it raises more revenue than health inflation!”

Perhaps the Unions are finding out a great truth about the Trillion dollar President, it’s all about him — always. He betrayed the Unions because he thought he needed to, to win. The President threw SEIU under the bus — for his Presidency.